Contents

Rationale

A place to enter a building. This is an important amenity when planning a route that includes the interrior and exterrior of buildings. For example, the fastest way to get from one location to another could be through another building, but in order to go through a building one must first determine where the entrances are. Another important issue is determining what kinds of entrances a building has, because a person with a mobility impairment might not be able to go up/down a set of stairs to go inside or leave a building. Additionally, those entrances might have different access privledges depending on the user's purpose for using the building; for example employees may have a private entrance to a building that is not availible to the general public.

Examples

Applies to

A building_entrance would be part of a Building tag, since it is part of a building.

These two tags would be helpful when doing route planning in areas that have many entrances used by people of differing status. For example, in a shopping area there may be private areas for vendors and custodial workers, but everything else is availible to the general public.

Rendering

Each entrance should be rendered differently depending on the accessibility of that entrance. The default should be a break in the outline of the building with two lines sticking out like an open door would.

Comments

Micromapping - mapping features that become important at 1:5,000 scale or less - is a relatively unexplored area of OSM but an important future direction and I am glad to see this effort and support it. MikeCollinson 09:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

May I suggest using building=building_entrance instead of amenity=building_entrance. This would make macro-level searches for amenities easier and would fit in with the informal but widely used building area tag. MikeCollinson 09:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You might also want to consider extending the tagging to ways and assessing any impact. If folks start working on the level of individual buildings rather than an entire (large?) campus, they may want to represent the actual approx width of entrances using lines rather using single points. MikeCollinson 09:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I too like this micro-level scheme, but would prefer building=building_entrance rather than amenity Chillly 10:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This should be IMHO combined with Proposed_features/House_numbers as entrances are often numbered or have other markings (House number 1, with entrances A, B, C, D, (Map example: [1]) --Onion 12:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Chilly and MikeCollinson, building=building_entrance sounds better to me. However if you change to building= then building=entrance might be enough. --Ckruetze 22:09, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Would it make sense to use the "access=private" that is currently being proposed at Proposed_features/access:_name_space instead of building_entrance=private_entry. This would also allow someone to specify when a building entrance is accessible as well -- ex. doors locked at night. Having private_entry/public_entry would disallow an entrance from having a access button or a ramp if I understand OSM correctly(sorry if I getting this wrong -- I'm new at this). Also, what if an entrance has a ramp and a access button? How about something like:

Assuming we use the access=* tagset (and we should because building_entrance=public_entry|private_entry does nothing that access=* and friends don't already allow), Wheelchair accessibility should additionally be marked with Proposed_features/wheelchair when it is accepted. Defining with reference to other schemes is good and healthy. I interpret an entrance tagged access=public as meaning not only that access is permitted for the general public, but also that the entrance is for the general public, and that the general public are the intended users. Otherwise, I like the scheme as it stands right now; the only thing I can think of adding is that there's sometimes a hierarchy amongst even public entrances: a confusing hospital complex near here has a "Main Entrance" and an "Old East Entrance" for the main warren. Most people are supposed to use the former. Encouraging and recommending use of name=* for this ought to be sufficient, though. --achadwick 16:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

How do we tag entrances to other things like a cemetry? If the building has multiple entrances how to tag the main entrance? --Bollin 19:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

These are good points. Maybe entrance=yes would be a better idea for this tag, so that entrances are not only tied to buildings but can also work with parks, cemetaries, playgrounds, pitches or anything else with a fence. Bitplane 15:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I strongly agree that it should not be tagged as an amenity. While I don't believe in avoiding amenity for the sake of it, it should only be used for amenities, which a building entrance isn't really. entrance=yes seems to have the broadest application. Daveemtb 07:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend a method that is closer to currently used syntax:

Is there not already a pretty recognised way to tag entrances. This should just be an extension of that system, adding access tags, wheelchair etc. See Tag:building=entranceMartin Renvoize 22:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)